Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders to be honoured by Bafta

Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are to be awarded with British film and
television's highest order, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Comedy duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are to be honoured by the Baftas

By Chris Hastings

9:00PM BST 18 Apr 2009

They have spent decades sending up the biggest world's biggest entertainment stars.

Now, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are to be honoured alongside them.

The comedy duo, who recently announced they were ending their double act, will receive the prestigious Fellowship award at next Sunday's Bafta ceremony.

It is only the second time that a British comedy double act has been awarded the honour and the pair are among only nine women to receive the accolade.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts' Fellowship was established in 1971 to recognise outstanding achievement in the 'art forms of the moving image' and is rarely awarded to individuals who made their names on the small screen.

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The pair will now appear on a roll call of stars, including Sir Anthony Hopkins, who was impersonated by French in a famous spoof of the Hollywood film Silence of the Lambs, and the director Ingmar Bergman, whose work has also been lampooned by the pair.

The pair join a handful of small screen legends who have been similarly honoured, including the Andrew Davies, the screenwriter, Morecambe and Wise and Sir David Frost, the broadcaster.

French and Saunders met in 1978 while studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama, in London. They started their television career in the hit Channel 4 series the Comic Strip Presents before being signed by the BBC in 1987.

Their series, 'French and Saunders', was one of the most successful sketch shows in British television history and ran for six series before ending in 2005.

On the show, the pair were famous for their spoofs of films such the Lord of the Rings, Titanic, Gone With The Wind and Star Wars, as well as impersonations of pop stars such as Madonna, Britney Spears, Björk and the band Bros.

The Fellowship is also being awarded in recognition of the television work they have done separately.

Absolutely Fabulous, which starred Saunders – who is married to the comedian Adrian Edmondson – regularly attracted audiences of ten million and is now being remade for US television.

French – who is married to the comedian Lenny Henry – has starred in the Vicar of Dibley, which has been named as Britain's third favourite ever comedy series.

Some of the biggest names in British showbusiness last night welcomed Bafta's decision to bestow the honour on the pair.

Richard Curtis, who wrote the Vicar of Dibley and who founded Comic Relief, which has regularly featured the pair, said: "I think they are our best ever female double act. Of course we have (Victoria) Wood and (Julie) Walters but it is different because they work differently.

"The great thing about French and Saunders is that they have never lost that edginess and weirdness. You often watch them and think they are profoundly strange.

"They started under the banner of alternative comedy but when they moved to BBC One in the 1980s they saw no reason why they should tone down the act or constrain themselves."

Curtis, who is himself a Bafta fellow, added: "They are supposed to have retired as a double act but there seems to be no doubt that their Mama Mia sketch on this year's Comic Relief was the best thing on the night.

"My girlfriend (the broadcaster Emma Freud) texted Harry Enfield to say he was the best thing on the night and he actually texted back saying 'Don't be silly, French and Saunders were'."

Joanna Lumley, who starred opposite Saunders in Absolutely Fabulous, said: "It is brilliant news. I obviously know them and adore them and I can't think of anyone more worthy of the honour."

Andrew Davies, who adapted Pride and Prejudice and Bleak House for television, said: "The Bafta fellowship is an enormous honour but it is richly deserved in the case of French and Saunders. They have been making us laugh and delighting us for decades.

"Being awarded the Fellowship is much more than winning a Bafta and it is much more enjoyable because they tell you in advance and there is none of that awful suspense on the night. I remember when I got mine I was hugged and kissed by Lord Attenborough which was an enormous thrill."